Department of Psychiatry, School of Medicine, University of Muenster, Albert-Schweitzer-Str. 11, Muenster, Germany.
Psychiatry Res. 2010 Jun 30;182(3):200-6. doi: 10.1016/j.pscychresns.2010.03.005. Epub 2010 May 20.
Schizophrenia patients show abnormalities in the processing of facial emotion. The amygdala is a central part of a brain network that is involved in the perception of facial emotions. Previous functional neuroimaging studies on the perception of facial emotion in schizophrenia have focused almost exclusively on controlled processing. In the present study, we investigated the automatic responsivity of the amygdala to emotional faces in schizophrenia and its relationship to clinical symptomatology by applying an affective priming task. 3-T fMRI was utilized to examine amygdala responses to sad and happy faces masked by neutral faces in 12 schizophrenia patients and 12 healthy controls. The Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale (PANSS) was administered to assess current symptomatology. Schizophrenia patients exhibited greater automatic amygdala responses to sad and happy faces relative to controls. Amygdala responses to masked sad and happy expressions were positively correlated with the negative subscale of the PANSS. Schizophrenia patients appear to be characterized by amygdalar hyperresponsiveness to negative and positive facial expressions on an automatic processing level. Heightened automatic amygdala responsivity could be involved in the development and maintenance of negative symptoms in schizophrenia.
精神分裂症患者在处理面部情绪方面表现出异常。杏仁核是大脑网络的一个核心部分，参与面部情绪的感知。先前关于精神分裂症患者对面部情绪感知的功能神经影像学研究几乎完全集中在受控处理上。在本研究中，我们通过应用情感启动任务，研究了精神分裂症患者杏仁核对情绪面孔的自动反应及其与临床症状学的关系。使用 3-T fMRI 检查了 12 名精神分裂症患者和 12 名健康对照者在中性面孔掩盖下对悲伤和快乐的面孔的杏仁核反应。采用阳性和阴性症状量表（PANSS）评估当前症状学。与对照组相比，精神分裂症患者对悲伤和快乐的面孔表现出更大的自动杏仁核反应。杏仁核对掩蔽的悲伤和快乐表情的反应与 PANSS 的阴性子量表呈正相关。精神分裂症患者在自动处理水平上似乎表现出对负性和正性面部表情的杏仁核过度反应。增强的自动杏仁核反应可能与精神分裂症阴性症状的发展和维持有关。
